Download Just Kids: An Autobiography

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Just
Kids
An
Autobiography
Description
Due to copyright restrictions, this
eBook may not contain
all of the
images available in the print edition.It was the
summer Coltrane died, the summer of love and
riots, and the summer when a chance encounter in
Brooklyn led two young people on a path of art,
devotion, and initiation.Patti Smith would evolve
as a poet and
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performer, and Robert Mapplethorpe would direct
his highly provocative style toward photography.
Bound in innocence and enthusiasm, they traversed
the city from Coney Island to Forty- second
Street, and eventually to the celebrated round
table of Max's Kansas City, where the Andy Warhol
contingent held court. In 1969, the pair set up
camp at the Hotel Chelsea and soon entered a
community of the famous and infamous?the
influential artists of the day and the colorful
fringe. It was a time of heightened awareness,
when the worlds of poetry, rock and roll, art,
and sexual politics were colliding and exploding.
In this milieu, two kids made a pact to take care
of each other. Scrappy, romantic, committed to
create, and fueled by their mutual dreams and
drives, they would prod and provide for one
another during the hungry years.Just Kids begins
as a love story and ends as an elegy. It serves
as a salute to New York City during the late
sixties and seventies and to its rich and poor,
its hustlers and hellions. A true fable, it is a
portrait of two young artists' ascent, a prelude
to fame.